The more Bay Areans learn about Prop 5, the less they like it. Even the historically liberal Chronicle Editorial Board now joins the San Jose Mercury News & East Bay Times in opposition to the constitutional amendment, which makes it easier to pass local housing and infrastructure bonds. Where would Prop 5’s new tax money go? To build on abandoned parking lots, argues the Chronicle, and to down-payment assistance that has nothing to do with infrastructure.

Unfortunately, Prop 5 is a Frankenstein measure. 

In July, the Legislature amended the measure at the behest of the powerful California Association of Realtors to ban local governments from using Prop 5 money to purchase or demolish most existing single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes and replace them with denser affordable housing. In exchange, the Realtors agreed not to fight Prop 5, for which they’d already raised more than $20 million in opposition. Sign up to receive updates on Opp Now articles. Click HERE.

Nearly 96% of residential land in California is zoned single-family-only, according to a recent UC Berkeley study. This means local governments would be banned from using Prop 5 funds to build affordable housing in the vast majority of the state, with only narrow exemptions for housing for domestic violence victims, refugees and people with developmental disabilities, as well as public-safety facilities such as police and fire stations.

… The state shouldn’t permanently relegate Prop 5-funded low-income housing to abandoned parking lots, commercial corridors and former industrial sites.

We’re also concerned about another Prop 5 provision that allows bond funding to be used for down-payment assistance. We agree with the measure’s opponents that bonds should be used primarily for long-term public infrastructure projects.

Read the whole thing here.

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